Just another WordPress.com site

Menu

Our Dear Brother, Ken Wapnick goes Home

It is my sad news to report that Dr. Kenneth Wapnick, the teacher of A Course in Miracles since its beginning, has passed over. His foundation gave this message: ” It is with the utmost sorrow that we inform you of the death of Dr. Kenneth Wapnick on Friday December 27, 2013. He died peacefully at home with his beloved wife Gloria and family at his side. The family will have a private service and plans are being made for a forthcoming public memorial.

“There is no death. The Son of God is free.” (W-pI.163)
“Teach not that I died in vain. Teach rather that I did not die by demonstrating that I live in you.” (T-11.VI.7:3-4)

Ken was my dearest friend, and definitely my mentor in ACIM. All of the articles I have posted on FB about ACIM were given to Ken first for his comments. We never had any significant disagreements. Ken was a Ph.D in Clinical Psychology and a fine theologian as well. His many books and videos survive him. He fulfilled the job Jesus laid out for him and he is receiving, I am sure, thanks, gratitude, and good reviews for his life by the angels.

For me, it is a great personal loss. Ken was my fan as well as my mentor. Part of Ken’s journey into Spirituality came from his love of opera. Over the years I sent him many arias, scenes and operas that I performed and he was always a heart-felt fan. I always knew that I could share anything with him and get his honest answer.

We will not dispute the higher decision to call Ken Home now, but we inevitably wonder about the future of ACIM without Ken. Ken, there with Helen from the beginning, was appointed by Jesus to be the teacher of the Course. He held the ship steady even while ACIM was splintering into schisms at an alarming rate, matching even Christianity’s early splintering into sects, which continues to this day. Thankfully Judy Skutch remains at the helm of The Foundation for Inner Peace.

Thank you, my dear, dear, dear friend and brother Ken I love you and I so thank you for all you gave me in this life. You lived a Christ-like life and touched us all. Fly high dear friend. I will see you again one day. ♥♥♥♥

I knew Ken was aging and feared the day he would pass on. Who would teach to us? Who knew the material better? I knew of no one. Then I began to wonder if Ken would come back and dream another dream. Or perhaps he is finished now. And if he did come back, who would he be? Why did we dream we lost him? Can we “pray” to him like we do to Jesus? I guess the only way we can “pray” to him is if he does not return to a body. What a huge loss. So many questions.

He certainly would not want you to “pray” to him. If he returns in another body he will have more lessons to learn. We will not necessarily be here as “us” when he returns. All we can do is be grateful for his life, grateful that he fulfilled the mission that Jesus gave him to teach the Course. The real St. Paul is still reincarnating and lives a life today in a body called Nick Bunick, so I imagine Ken will also return in time, maybe in a couple of centuries.

I looked up Nick on facebook and sent him a friend request. I am sure there is much he can teach. I have been reading your blogs since yesterday. There is a lot of information there to read but I know it is all an illusion. Ken never spoke of the things you speak of in your blog. I guess because he found them to be illusions. Did you and him share the same views about the subjects in your blog? What did he say about your writings here? I am a studier of the Course. I was on a search for falsehoods and was lead to Disappearence of the Universe which in turn lead me to the Course.

Ken shared my views. He called my writings “Kosher” and sometimes “Glatt Kosher” (very Kosher). He did not recommend Gary’s writings on the Course (“Disapperance of the Universe”) He thought it would lead to confusion. Ken had his way of teaching but that doesn’t mean he opposed other ways. Tara Singh taught the Course very differently from Ken, but there was no tension. You must remember that the Course is designed to be a self-study course. As Tara Singh said, “We must be students, and the Teacher will come.”

There is a wealth of information in your blog and right now I am listening to Youtube videos about Edgar Cayce. I had never heard of him before. But I wonder if I am just wasting my time because none of it is real. But it is so much fun to think about!!! I have watched many videos of John Lear and find him fascinating. But maybe I should take all those energies and put them into the Course because it is really the only way. Edgar Cayce, John Lear, and aliens are mere distractions so cleverly made up by our wrong mind. I think that would be Ken’s point of view.

No that was not Ken’s attitude. He was extremely well informed about all sorts of psychic and spiritual information. He encouraged me to go to Brazil to see John of God. You are putting Ken into a box. IF the Course is for you, you will be driven to study it, but it does not ask you to receive it as the only way. It says a universal theology is impossible and it describes itself as just one version of the universal course. THE COURSE IS NOT SPECIAL.

I actually think Ken would not discourage you from going to Brazil because that would have been a judgement. I also do not think he would have said anything “bad” about your blog because that too would have been a judgement. He respected where everyone was on their journey to wake up.

Well that is your opinion and it comes from within you. I knew Ken as a close friend and a mentor. We discussed theology a lot, and he was not timid in presenting his opinion. But he accepted my thought as “glatt Kosher” for the Course and spoke highly of our work together. That I know is true. I do not need any external validation from anybody else’s opinion. Now I think this reply and answer thread needs to close. Thank you for your interest.

Agreed that Ken respected where everyone was on their journey. You can’t actually judge the *form* of what Ken would say to you (and he was a mentor and friend of mine, too) or to anyone else. Sometimes he would say one thing to me, and then say the complete opposite a little later. Once I was confused and asked him about it, and he said that it’s not what you say but the Love inside that matters. He would just try to listen, not to the words of the person or the problems or whatever, but to the ego blocks underneath. Then he would say whatever he thought would be helpful. He knew that pretty much everything we do/say/think, being attack and distraction, then becomes neutral. If you listen to many of his workshops, he often questions people’s need to teach ACIM in form when so few of us want to truly learn it (and thus teaching becomes a way of not actually living ACIM). So on one level, I think he would say almost any teacher of ACIM, for example, is misusing that.

But on the other hand, once it becomes our classroom, it can be used by our Inner Teacher to help us learn to forgive ourselves and others, thus making what we chose to be harmful, helpful. Also, not meaning to pick on ACIM teachers specifically. I have been trying to get pregnant, which Ken and I both knew was tied up in a lot of specialness for me and is a way of distracting myself, but he never said, “Why would you get pregnant? Trying to create life is a symbol of our original attack on God,” which it is. Instead, he acted in such a way that I would feel supported, and we talked about fertility treatments, about my plan, etc – normal stuff that a kind friend would say. So to Ken, really all of us were steeped in specialness, mostly no more or less than anyone else. But he could look past all our antics and really join us wherever we were/are in our journey. So I wouldn’t necessarily take what he said about “kosher” or another teacher not being kosher too literally to heart (It may be true, but we don’t want to use it as an attack with ourselves or others). All of us walk around with tons of Guilt spilling out of everything we do. Ken’s role as a Teacher, and this definitely true for the hundreds of us he corresponded with, is to make us feel a little less guilty for everything. His unconditional love of us then allowed us to forgive ourselves just a bit more after each interaction. My love to you, Ken, the most generous, patient, and kind person I have ever me. Thankfully, all we have to do is pop in a CD and he is back on channel 5 with us.

Ken had his own ways of approaching and living the Course. Another teacher, approved by Helen, was Tara Singh and he had a very different take on the Course. If you had asked him about having a baby he would have given you another answer. See his video, Raising a Child of God from his foundation. You seem to be presenting Ken as a kind of floating chimera. He wasn’t that way with me. We could discus Gnosticism, Bultmann, The Jesus Seminar, and he would give objective answers and we would have an objective, scholarly talk….but always loving. I imagine we will each remember him differently…and that is fine. We all miss him.

Yes, he was different with you than he was with me, that is exactly what I was trying to say. He had an indivodualized curriculum with each of us. With my scientist husband, he drew upon his research days and he played the part of the man of science. They were all forms of the Love he had for us, which he would change a bit for each of us so that we could hear and join with him. It sounds like your relationship with him was lovely.

Love you Ken seriously. Your stuff were so fun to watch. it was actually fun no matter how grossly some of the ego tricks were put on table! I become aware of all your material (the message behind them) in a very short period of time. It did not take me 15 – 20 years to get it. I just wanted to mention about this so that some people out there dont have to be worried about “how long will this journey take”

The journey can be undertaken smoothly. I admit that my willingness played a huge part of it even in the midst of turmoil, sickness and pain. It was like this because I did discover at an early age that nothing that I was doing makes me fully happy (I was very full of ambition and full of creative ideas mostly evolving around music and movies) but no matter how active I was with my productions, the very fact that at some point some problem will arise, motivated me to look at things differently and so I did. Ken and Glorias material really boosted my understanding. You guys are hardcore wohoo!